“I read your blogs. I have a few comments: Schmuck, you are 50. Count them, I will wait. [No waiting time] Ok, I will bottom-line it for you. 50 years old. Are you going to spend the next decade in the dumps? Because your father will live that long. You know he will —”

“But,” trying to get in a word, “there was AROB and ULOB and —-“

“Done. They are gone. It is hard to clean up after people who are dead. But you are not hurting them by selling their stuff and doing whatever you have to do. It is a job.”

Pause. I am trying hard not to shriek, “You don’t f&^*ing understand! It has been toooooo much these past two years!!!” But I didn’t.

I did seethe, however. And think about my martyrdom. I felt sooooo self-righteous. And then I remembered I was Jewish and there is no sainthood.

And, then, I thought: Really, [Blogger]? Are you kidding me?

Martyrdom?

MARTYRDOM?

MARTYRDOM?

Do ya read the newspapers? [NOW, I am calling myself, schmuck.]

I stopped. Mostly because I exhausted myself, even without uttering a word. And, I was letting stuff get me down which, if I stopped for a little perspective, is hard but so life-affirming. I was getting stuck in a quagmire of details and legal issues and I forgot to be grateful for the lives my elders lived and my part in making those lives happy and secure at the most vulnerable times.

But, perspective can be tiresome and short-lived, especially if one is a self-indulgent, overly-consumptive New Yorker. (Oops, that would be I.)

Still, even I couldn’t shake the idea that I need to think differently about a situation that isn’t going to change (until the BIG change). Saturday was such a sunny beautiful day that it was hard to feel sad.

I decided walking to Dad’s house for lunch (at the you-know-where) was just the thing to put me in a good mood.

I walked the three or so miles there, through the city streets and Central Park.

It didn’t start out so well.

I heard a woman ranting at her boyfriend (possibly fiancé) about how much money he gives to his dead-beat dad. The man didn’t even utter a word. She just kept on responding to his unspoken answers.

I wanted to scream. Oh, please, shut up. Did you ask what he gets out of it and what pain he avoids by doing this, even though you say he doesn’t want to give his dad money?

I heard two joggers disagree about whether helmets save lives.

Ok, thought for the day: it may or it may not, but what the hell, wear it. I couldn’t hurt.

OK, this walk in the Park thing is — how shall I say it — no walk in the park.

Then, I heard one biker, who apparently had been cut off by another biker, yell, “Youw mothah is a man!!!” [English translation: your mother is quite unattractive.]

So unexpected in a City where, in fact, his mother could have transitioned from, or to, a man. Such a throwback comment, ripped right from the urban playground where we born-and-bred New Yorkers cut our teeth in the 1960s and 70s.

I don’t know why, but I laughed so hard. Maybe because it was a different kind of nostalgia — ludicrous one and so out-dated. And the laughter made the sun felt brighter and warmer. And I hummed all the way to Dad’s house, even skipping a little.

En route, we bumped into a man who was once our upstairs neighbor and our playmate 40 years ago. His mother, who always seemed a lovely woman, still lives in Dad’s building and she is sick. And he is taking care of her. I wanted to think kind thoughts but he is a convicted pedophile. He wanted to hug and kiss us all hello and I wanted to vomit. I kept my distance. I was so close to screaming and beating him about the head and face.

(Cue clip of Mariska Hargitay of Law and Order: SVU ‘cuffing him.)

He served some (not enough) time and was released. As a citizen, I believe in a criminal justice system that gives convicts a second chance. As a mother, I believe in the death penalty for pedophiles and other predators.

Sidebar: Ain’t the old neighborhood great? There are scary, bad secrets scattered all along the sun-soaked streets of the East Side.

I decided I didn’t need to remind my father of this former neighbor’s felonies. I didn’t think Dad could process it. There are some things Dad doesn’t need to remember. I, of course, was thinking about castration.

We were late to COTUD. I wondered if any of the regulars wondered whether Dad might be more than undead, as it were.

(cue suspenseful music)

No table for us. It was bustling at COTUD. But, because we are regulars and we don’t stay all afternoon, the management likes us. So do the main waiters, Nick and Vassily.

Vassily asked an old woman with a walker to get up and move, so they could put tables together and accommodate us. I was mortified. I went over to the woman and apologized and thanked her.

(cue sadess about the indignities of being old in a fast-paced, youth obsessed world)

We saw Sam and his long-time companion, Norma, who were eating with Norma’s daughter and sons. We had never met Norma’s family.

(cue immediate suspicion)

It was good to see Norma out and about. She is frail. As people grow older, their face lifts and other work seem so distorted against the natural aging (and sagging) of the rest of their bodies. (Just a note to those who are considering “face work”. Even her daughter’s face work could use a little — how do you say? — refreshment.)

Last time SOB saw Norma at the COTUD, they had a pleasant conversation, after which SOB overheard Norma say about Mom:

“Elsie was a special person. It was the first time at a funeral that people used superlatives and they were true!”

(cue sigh and teary eyes)

Ok, so we love Norma. And Sam.

Vassily didn’t even give us menus. The only thing that needed to be said was “french fries, too”.

The fries came. I offered them around. Something was stuck to the underside of the plate.

It was gum.

Peppermint gum.

First, what cretin sticks gum on the underside of a plate and, second, what dishwasher doesn’t clean that?

And this place has an “A” health rating.

(cue visions of the horror flicks like, ‘Wilbur,” about a killer rat.)

Ugh. I scrubbed my hands raw in the less than Grade A bathroom.

Then Harvey came in. He had to take a cab the 1.5 blocks from his apartment building to the diner because it was uphill and he has two canes. (I saw him through the window.)

He took a table right next to us. We greeted him warmly and asked about his wife and (now middle-aged) son.

Barbara, his wife, was at home. “She has dementia and cysts on her legs. But me, I turned 90 and I still work and drive!”

OMG. This is the second public menace we have met today.

I was worried about the driving thing but he can’t get in and out of a car without assistance, so I am pretty sure he doesn’t really drive.

He said to SOB, “you look great — just the same — and still working hard, I am sure.” He looked at me. “You look different.”

Harvey, whom I never liked, was telling me I looked old. I liked his wife, even with her screechy voice. She was always making a jello mold. She always had a bouffant “do”. She perpetually lived in 1969. Even in the 1990s, she brought jello molds to my parents’ Yom Kippur break fast. By then, it was totally cool and retro.

By the end of lunch, SOB and I staggered out. Overwhelmed by the faint smell of peppermint. Horrified at seeing the pedophile free among us. Wistful about time gone by for Sam, Norma, Harvey, Barbara and Dad.

Dad, however, thought it was a fine time in the neighborhood. And that is how it should be for Dad at 93.

Sometimes I wonder about Judaism. Some laws are aspirational; others acknowledge the base nature of humanity. For example, “don’t talk unkindly about the deaf” or “don’t put a stone in the way of the blind”.

Nevertheless, a good reminder. But there is a greater imperative: guide someone who is blind if requested, or if you think that the offer of guidance would be well-received.

I went to the gym for exactly one-half hour. (SOB is wearing off on me.) I stopped at the wine shop because I deserved a treat after so much (okay, so little) exertion.

I overheard a conversation between a man and a woman. The man was describing the stores to the woman. He was very formal, as if they hadn’t met before. I looked back and I saw that the woman had a blind person’s walking stick although her eyes didn’t have the tell-tale signs of long-term blindness.

I slowed my gait to listen. The man, Richard, was turning left on 97th Street, and the woman, Debra, was continuing on. On the northwest corner of 97th Street, I introduced myself to them and asked if I could be of assistance.

Debra and I walked along for a block and I described the new stores and the general scene.

Then I asked, “It seems that your blindness is recent. May I ask what happened?”

“Glaucoma. It was gradual. I can see big objects, but I can no longer read. I am what people call ‘legally blind’. But I can’t just sit at home. I have to make the best of it.”

We continue along and I describe the stores and our relative location. Of course, I can’t ever remember what the new store replaced. Because I don’t have to rely on my memory rather than my sight.

And people don’t get out of the way of a blind person. They really need to read the basics of the Hebrew Bible. Mostly because I was ready to rain down vengeance all over them.

She asks, “is the Starbuck’s still here?” “Is the jazz club still here?”

I answered her questions. We talked about family and kids. She is 61 and her mother is still alive and is inconsolable about her daughter’s glaucoma.

At 106th Street, my turn-off, I decide that Broadway and West End converge in way that is difficult to navigate. I decide to take her to the Rite Aid on 110th Street, which is her destination.

“Why this Rite-Aid?” I ask.

“I grew up in this neighborhood and now I have moved back. But the last time I was here was five years ago. I figured that Broadway on a Sunday in the summer was quiet enough that I would try an adventure. To be honest, I was relying on nice people in the neighborhood who might help if I needed it.”

I walked her into Rite-Aid. She blessed me and my family.

But I felt blessed. Blessed that I don’t have her impairment. Blessed that two strangers can walk along amiably for a half-mile and both leave the encounter feeling very positive, even if for different reasons.

On Yom Kippur day, POB (partner of blogger) took sick and I was recovering from my contagion and we were clearly not going back to synagogue. I rallied SOS (our son, source of sanity) to take a walk with me, but first he had to have a meltdown about not be able to take his scooter with us. I had to draw a line, such as it was, since it WAS the holiest of holy days after all.

We ambled up Broadway. In fact I dragged SOS up Broadway. “Penance,” I whispered quietly, “for the sin that I have sinned against G-d by . . . .”

No, dear SOS, we weren’t going to browse in Bank Street Bookstore. Nope, no ice cream either. We are just walking. Now imagine the response: silent treatment from hell interspersed by whiny demands for better parents. Obviously, I didn’t self-flagellate enough during these Holy Days. I obviously needed this for true atonement. I had thought to look around for broken glass and hot coals so I could walk on them. But, no need, I had my child to torture me.

SOS’s mood did brighten considerably when I said that we would cut through the Columbia campus to Amsterdam and then walk home. You could see in his eyes that he knew liberation from the cruel bondage (of walking ten blocks) was within reach. “E-mom, is the DVR recording on Yom Kippur?” I looked at him. “I withdraw the question.” Wow, that gene replacement therapy is working.

As we walked through the Columbia quad, I felt like we stepped outside Manhattan and onto any non-urban campus. I don’t think I have been around that many 17-22 year-olds since I left college. My initial thought was that I could just naturally blend into the scene.

Then reality hit: I see me when I look at them and they see a middle age women when they look at me.

[For those of you who know Fiddler on the Roof, join me: When did I stop looking so youthful? When did I start to act so old? Wasn’t it yesterday when we were at the mall? Sunrise, sunset.]

Back to reality (after a fashion).

As we were walking down Amsterdam, SOS interrupted my self-pity about wasted youth and asked if we were permitted to go to St John the Divine on Yom Tov.

Really? I panicked because I was so sure that, on this clear day, lightning was about to strike.

SOS interpreted my panic as disapproval. “It’s ok, E-Mom, we don’t have to go into a church. I just wanted to see the albino peacock.”

“The whaaaat?”

“Eeeeeee-Mom,” SOS said in that way that was accompanied by a you’re-so-stupid-how-do-you-manage-to-breathe eye roll, “albino means all white and the albino peacock lives in the garden. It’s sort of like a refuge for it.”

“Oh, ok, buddy, then it is ok if we go to church,” I said as I readied to throw my son out of the way of the thunderbolt or flood that will whisk me away to hell.

My grandmother used to kiss the mezzuzah and put money in the pushke (the charity box) to get around minor infractions of Jewish kosher laws so her children could drink milk before bed if bedtime was less than six hours after a meat dinner. Would this work on the holiest of holy days? My mind was going through all of the usual arguments for the KM/MP (kiss mezzuzah/money in pushke) panacea as we were getting closer to St. John the Divine. Would we have to go in the church to get to the garden where the peacock lives? Churches are beautiful but still . . . .

Luckily we didn’t have to go into the church to reach the garden. Phew.

It is Saturday morning. POB (partner of blogger) went to the gym at an ungodly hour that would shame me if I were susceptible to being shamed. TLP (our son, the little prince) is subjecting me to Pokemon and Bakugan while there is a perfectly good Phineas and Ferb show on Cartoon Network. I love Phineas and Ferb, in fact I DVR the show for POB and me. TLP is only sort of into it. (Ok, enough back story for a different blog entry).

My blackberry ran out of juice just before it was my turn for torture in the name of fitness. This meant that I was going for a run without any telecommunication devices. POB and I had to plan ahead and decide when and where I would meet her and TLP for a picnic in Central Park after the run.

Old style planning. Never-heard-of planning for an entire generation of children.

I walked out of the house, feeling strangely like I lost an anchor. No, not an anchor; actually, a ball and chain. No, not exactly, a ball and chain; more naked. No phone, no texting capabilities, no internet. It is okay if I were actually naked; hey, it is New York, no one would notice. Except that I need a sports bra. That is totally non-negotiable. Good thing the naked feeling was metaphoric and not actual. (Am I digressing? I really can’t tell anymore.)

As I set out, it is just the open road and I. Ok, and city traffic, too, until I get into Riverside Park.

I was running, with a gusto that comes from sticking it to the Man. I cannot be reached. No one can find me. Ha!! I am untethered. Wait. I am the Man (or part of the Man)! Oh, shit. I am (part of) the Man and I can’t find me. Existential nightmares start slamming my brain, even some too weird for Sartre, Camus or Ionesco. The Man is not so bad. Gee, I miss the Man.

Then, what if I get hurt? What if POB or TLP gets hurt and I cannot be reached?

I have to stop running because my hyperventilation has caused cramps and shortness of breath. See? This wouldn’t have been so bad if I had waited for the Man to get powered up and put it in my back pocket for the run. Now, my family is in need and I am turning blue. I am in the Wilderness of Riverside Park. Actually, there is a cafe within view. Ok, Wilderness is a relative term. In New York, if there isn’t a latte available within 3 blocks, that’s wilderness. No lattes at this cafe, so I am in ABJECT WILDERNESS.

Wait, what do I hear? A voice? As in vox clamantis in deserto (a voice cries out in the wilderness)? Is this the moment of my spiritual awakening? (And I am dressed like this?)

Turns out, someone was yelling at me, “Stay in the runner’s lane!!!”

Ok, no spiritual awakening, no kindness of strangers, no nothing. And I am unconnected to everyone. And I cannot even post about this on FaceBook. The horror, the horror. Even Dostoyevsky was able to get out Notes from Underground. Me, I got nothing. No iAnything. No RIM at the edge of the corporate drain. I have my driver’s license, money and a credit card. I could buy some minutes from someone, but who would believe my story? The cops would be called and then I would have to explain my circumstances, and inevitably the response from the officer would be, “you own telecommunication devices and you willfully left them home?” “Officer, yes, I did it willfully but not maliciously — call it, semi-youthful hubris.”

Ok, I can’t breathe from the stress. I am gripping my heart. Vagrants think I am giving them the “strong” sign and they pound their hearts back. Really, really? I am probably having a stress dream and I will wake up. Then I stagger past a long line of people waiting for an opportunity to kayak in the Hudson River even though there was a warning about life-threatening sewage in the water. Ok, even I cannot come up with this stuff. I am awake and my family is in peril and the police are no help and my fellow citizens want to go boating in nuclear waste.

Exhaustion sets in. How will I make it to the appointed meeting place for the picnic. Thank G-d for taxis. I am sweaty from my run/freak-out but he smells like he ran a marathon. At least I know I am not stinking up this cab. I get out a few blocks early to air out. Really. Seinfeld did not lie.

I arrive at the pre-arranged meeting place about five minutes early. I am already apoplectic about the things that could have gone wrong that will upend the rendez-vous. (How DID we survive without this crazy connectivity?) I imagine that POB got a call about her father, my father, her sister, my sister or brother or our nephews. Disaster has struck. I am clueless on 96th and Central Park West. What was I thinking not waiting until my phone recharged? That was sooooo selfish of me. My family is in need and I am standing on a street corner like an idiot.

I see them across the street. They are smiling and waving. We all hug and kiss and walk together into the Park, to look for a picnic site. POB says, “you look exhausted!!” I say it was a hard run. We smile and hold hands as TLP runs slightly (did I say slightly) ahead to find a good place to plop down for a picnic.

Because, all over the country, newly-minted graduates from medical schools are in hospitals and each is called “doctor”. Enough said.

SOB (sister of blogger) is an attending physician at a hospital and the head of the medical intensive care unit. Each year I offer to have a talk with anyone she deems a “007” (licensed to kill) about other potential career paths. It is my annual charitable event; I think of it as saving lives. Every year, she demurs. No one is quite the Austin Powers version of James Bond.

But the offer still stands.

When TLP (our son, the little prince) was born, it was July 11. The interns were 10 days old. POB (partner of blogger) had to have an emergency Caesarian. In order to get to the baby in a Caesarian procedure, a lot of organs need to be taken out of the way. So when TLP was born and I heard the OB-GYN say to the intern, “where would you put the uterus?” I offered, “back where it belongs!!!!”

I do pull-ups at the gym. Apparently unlike other women. The beefy, muscled boys love to give me pointers.

One trainer refers to the pull-up bar as a “girl”. So when he sees me, he asks, “Did you visit your girl?” and “Did you do right by your girl?”

In what can only be described as an out-of-body experience, I respond, “Hey, I am always respectful to the girl.” What middle-aged, white, middle class, Jewish woman talks like this? (Apparently, I do.)

“All right. That’s the answer I wanna hear,” he says.

Ok, gym talk is nuts. And, even nutsier? That I am talking the talk. Imagine that. Actually, DON’T. It is too ugly.

My sister, weighing in at approximately 98 pounds soaking wet, comes over after doing a non-work-out on the elliptical machine. She didn’t even break a sweat. “It was the least I could do,” she says. No lie.It is hard to imagine 30 minutes on a cardio machine and not one bead of sweat. But my sister has always been exceptional.

She wants to try a pull-up. I offer to give her an assist. “I can do this,” she says as she waves me off and grabs the bar. And then dangles helplessly like a fish caught on bait. “I had no idea that this was hard!!” This is clearly not the least she could do. So, she kisses me and goes to the locker room for a shower even though not even a little sweat was shed.

But don’t mess with my sister. She’ll drop you in 5 seconds. She may not have abs of steel but she has a force of will that would humble professional boxers.

Some back story (again). TLP (our son, the little prince) asked BYP (beautiful young princess) to marry him two years ago. BYP said, “Sure!!” And they have been betrothed ever since the tender age of 7 years-old. The Yiddish name for the relationship between parents of a married couple is “machertunim”. The mothers are “machertenesters” and the father is a “shver” (not a really pleasant translation).

So, while I was having my well-documented endoscopy, our machertenester was having laparoscopy to remove her not-quite-burst appendix.

How did we find out? Our machertenester was emailing from her blackberry to tell us because they had to cancel our dinner plans for tonight. Really? Really? That was on your mind as you recover from surgery?

Laparoscopy, open-heart surgery, whatEVERRRR. Surgery is surgery.

The emails went something like this:

“We have to cancel dinner tomorrow night. I had my appendix removed this morning.”

[Blogger side bar: I am thinking, WAIT, WAS THAT WRITTEN IN THE SAME WAY AS, “Sorry, we couldn’t get a babysitter” ??????? Really, machertenester? What, all of sudden, you like minimalist and Bauhaus in an emotional context? Are you too assimilated?]

“OMG, what happened?”

“What do you mean ‘OMG what happened?’ You have an out of office message about an unanticipated absence! I am freaking out!”

“No, you can’t freak out because YOU-U-U had major surgery?”

“Not so major; it was caught before the rupture. What did you have done?”

“Endoscopy, with Michael Jackson drugs.”

“And you thought you were going to the office after THAT?”

[OK, this conversation is going in the wrong direction.]

“Wait, we are talking about your almost disastrous brush with rupture, peritonitis and shock.”

I look up exactly what happened to Machertenester. Ewwwwwwwwwwww.

(ruptured appendix)

(surgery)

“I’m fi-i-ine.”

“Should we take the kids? Do you need ANYTHING?” [I am thinking if she said, “New cable box or blender” I would have gotten it for her.]

Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge is a world away from New York City. Imagine a place so quiet that you can hear the bird calls and Canada geese walk right past you as calmly as if you belonged.

Except the refuge is actually IN New York City (see faint red arrow pointing to Empire State Building).

Seemed like another world, except for this sign:

But, then again, in this country, that sign could be anywhere. But in a wildlife refuge? Really?

Yesterday, POB (partner of blogger), TLP (our son, the little prince), SOB (sister of blogger), HOSOB (husband of SOB), DOB (Dad of blogger) and CB (newly rediscovered cousin who is a birder) had an outing there. TLP had binoculars, HOSOB and CB had those AND these crazy telescopes on tripods.

I thought we would be stared at for all the bird nerd equipment. I was soooo wrong. People there had all manner of paraphernalia to observe birds. And these people are serious. No jocularity allowed. Apparently, lawyers who are new to bird-nerding are the most opinionated (and most often wrong). In fact, we came upon a heated discussion among the nerdiest of the nerds about the kind of tern that was on the beach ahead. CB being a low-key but über-knowledgeable nerd tried to help and consulted the various field guides handed to him. It was getting so heated that we had to leave as did the neophyte lawyer nerder who had made a “wrong tern” identification (as it were). He stomped off, taking a “left tern” and we opted to take a “right tern”. Okayyyyy, no more tern jokes.

Actually, we did see some extraordinary things through the nerd scopes.

But then when the boys — HOSOB, CB and TLP — started debating whether a bird was a mature, immature or juvenile sub-species of something (I know two birds; pigeon and yellow belly sap sucker, the latter may be a made-up cartoon bird), the rest of us needed to rest.

Needless to say, the mature females — SOB, POB and me — along with the eldest male — DOB — enjoyed a lovely walk around the quiet, calm sanctuary. (Ok, except for the near altercation I mentioned.)

I know, it has been a long time since I had a story that involved the magnetic S (for Schmuck) on my forehead. You remember, the one that attracts crazy people to me.

Yesterday, on the subway (OF COURSE) a man introduced himself to me as a “storm chaser” and told me all about the tornado hitting Springfield, MA. Then he moved on to stories about the wonderful people in California after the last earthquake.

He and his wife travel to natural disasters. He told me:

“It’s what we do.”

I keep thinking about this guy and his wife. They aren’t storm chasers because they only arrive after the catastrophe. He didn’t mention that he was an aid worker. So, so, so, they are . . . .

Disaster Gawkers?

How creepy. So much oooky-ness packed into 3 subway stops. I was a little capitivated by his creepiness and oooky-ness. Thank G-d I had to get off because I was running late to a meeting; otherwise I would have traveled to bowels of Brooklyn to listen to this guy.